• Question: I dont understand why our neuron paths 'wear' down over time, thus why we forget stuff. Surely if we are the superior species; at the top of the food chain, we should be better than everything at everything and not forget things. Discuss?

    Asked by thebeast to Fiona, Jane, Joanna, Michelle, William on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Michelle Murphy

      Michelle Murphy answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      I don’t think being better at everything is not really that important we just have to be better at surviving and adapting to our environment (which we are). For example we are not good at flying by ourselves like birds but we are better at inventing things and have the aeroplane which is faster at flying and can fly further distances than birds.

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hi, we can’t remember everything as there is just too much going on in our world. Our brains decide the most useful information to remember. So if we put our hand in the fire and burn, we remember not to do it again. Or if we press a button and money comes out we may press it again. Animals can remember things too.

    • Photo: Jane Henry

      Jane Henry answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      The problem of forgetfulness is partly a problem of retrieval. There is a lot of stuff in the brain that we can not always retrieve when we want, like when you momentarily forget a word but its pops out an hour later. That said memory is not terribly reliable, many things we do remember we have been rehearsing and reinforcing, so if you like sport you might think about football often, so the connections in this area get reinforced and are easier to locate.
      We are only top of the food chain in terms of intelligence, there are many other abilities that other animals are better at – dogs have a vastly superior sense of smell, we can barely begin to change skin colour voluntarily like chameleons. You can probably thing of lots more creatures with superior abilities to us in other areas.

    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hey good question. Imagine your brain like a brand new car! In the beginning it is fantastic, it runs really well, looks great and never breaks down. But over time you need to change the tyres, you need to wash it more regularly because it gets a bit rusty, the engine starts making funny noises and eventually everything wears down. Well, this is like the human brain – in the end it grows old. Although we are top of the food chain we have not figured out a way to stop growing old. So that’s why your brain wears down – the ageing process.

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